ROCKFORD — Within the Rockford School District’s $250 million capital improvement plan is a proposal to make sweeping changes to the district’s prekindergarten program serving 2,600 of the district’s youngest students.

The plan is to take almost all of the program’s students and place them at early childhood centers. Right now, the program’s 77 classrooms are spread out among three centers, seven elementary schools and two day care centers.

The idea behind the consolidation is to improve the quality of education offered to all prekindergarten students in the district by sidestepping structural challenges at elementary schools and ensuring that all prekindergarteners have easy access to the same resources.

It’s a lot of little things that add up. The playground equipment at elementary schools tends to be too big for 3- and 4-year-olds. Most of the playgrounds lack a fence, as well, something early childhood programs are expected to have. Then there’s the rooms themselves, where SMARTBoards have been installed at elementary height as opposed to pre-K height. Bathrooms and water fountains pose challenges, as well. Prekindergarteners need to have 20 minutes of gym time a day, as well, which takes place in school foyers at some elementary schools.

While some of the district’s elementary school-based prekindergarten classrooms are long-standing, some are not. Some go from school to school depending on the space available. That poses less of a problem for parents, whose children typically are only in the program for one year, but more of a problem for teachers and support staff who are in a constant state of settling in.

“We’re wanting to provide the best and highest quality early childhood we can, and we believe that having space dedicated specifically to early childhood needs with the right-sized bathrooms and playgrounds, with the right resources and best opportunities for professional development for the staff, is in centers,” said Kim Nelson, the district’s executive director of early childhood education. “Early childhood really is a separate animal with a lot of rules and expectations that do not apply to elementary. It can be very difficult to duplicate the experience we provide at a center at an elementary school with two pre-K teachers.

“This is an opportunity for us to bring it all back in line.”

Early childhood shuffle

If the Rockford School Board approves the capital plan next month, the proposed changes would be implemented over time. No changes would take place until after the 2014-2015 school year.

Specific to early childhood: Dennis Early Childhood Center on the city’s far west side would close. Fairview and Summerdale would remain. Nashold and Beyer elementary schools would become early childhood centers. Classes offered through Trinity and Circles of Learning day care centers would remain intact as would two classrooms at Haskell Year-Round Academy to accommodate parents seeking a longer school year for their children. Maria Montessori runs its own prekindergarten program, which would remain intact as well.

Page 2 of 3 - Classes at Marsh, Riverdahl, Rolling Green, West View and White Swan would move to one of the district’s new early childhood centers. The number of classrooms would remain the same, Nelson said, barring any unexpected increases in grant funding. Classroom sizes would stay the same, too. The program has five self-contained special education prekindergarten classes, which would stay.

Laurie Pellant, an early childhood teacher at Fairview Early Childhood Center, has spent more than 25 years in early childhood education in public, private and day care settings. She’s also taught at early childhood centers and in classrooms added to elementary school programs. She supports the district’s efforts to consolidate early childhood programs at centers designed for quality prekindergarten education.

Pellant was fortunate, she said, that she had many years of experience before she taught for one year with one other pre-K teacher at McIntosh Elementary School in Rockford.

The school’s leadership was welcoming and supportive, Pellant said, but there are just some things that difficult to work around regardless of cooperation.

“You don’t really realize the ease of the gymnasium being set up all day with an obstacle course for 3- and 4-year-olds, and all you have to do is go down with your students and take your turn,” Pellant said. “You can’t really do that at an elementary school. They need the gym for other things. You have to keep the kids off the playground equipment that’s too big for them. Then there’s the whole collaboration aspect. I have 18 teachers to work with and bounce ideas off of where I am now. Our specialists are not only specialists in speech or special education but they are certified in early childhood speech and special education. That makes a difference.”

When things like gym time scheduling and playground equipment and the level of sinks are off the table, there’s more time for education, Pellant said.

“I think the teachers who move from an elementary school to a center will see a lot of ways where the building is set up for them and for the younger children,” she said. “And that makes it better for them and their students.”

The typical Rockford early childhood student attends class for two hours and 45 minutes a day for one year before they enroll in kindergarten. It’s one of the largest prekindergarten education programs in Illinois.

Programs vary statewide

Early childhood education programs at public schools are varied across the state. Some districts have centers. Some provide prekindergarten at elementary schools. Some do a mix like Rockford does now. Some don’t offer it at all. Prekindergarten education is not mandated in Illinois.

Page 3 of 3 - In the Belvidere School District, prekindergarten expansion talks are underway. Right now, the district has prekindergarten for special education students only. It serves about 85 children.

The district hoped to offer general education prekindergarten in the coming school year, but leaders were unable to find the funding.

“It’s one of my goals to add prekindergarten for at-risk students in a general education setting this year,” said Matt Ross, Belvidere’s director of special education. “Our kids need it. Nearly 50 percent of our students are on free or reduced-price lunch.”

Belvidere’s prekindergarten program for special education students is housed in five classrooms at four of the district’s elementary schools. General education pre-K likely would be added at elementary schools.

“The plan would be to run them at our elementary buildings,” Ross said. “We don’t really have a building available to run a center.”

Several districts are looking to add early childhood centers, Nelson said. The state even offered a new grant last year to help school districts pay for construction of new centers.

Rockford’s early childhood program costs about $13.8 million a year. That includes a birth-to-3-year-old home visiting program for about 200 families. Most of it comes from grants. The district chipped in $1.6 million last year, up from about $400,000 the previous year.

“They put a stake in the ground,” Nelson. “The reason they did that is because there’s good data out there that children who attend early childhood do better when they get to kindergarten. There’s a decrease in criminal activity and teen pregnancy and an increase in the number of kids who attend college. ... When you have 92 percent of your students reading at grade level at graduation if they read at grade level at third grade, why would we not concentrate our efforts on birth to third grade? When we miss that mark, we know our kids struggle, which is why it’s so important to put programming in place to support our children before they get to that mark.”